It’s no secret that marijuana sales bring in a lot of money – after all, Colorado made so much that they almost had to refund the tax money. Sales in individual states are in the millions – and that’s just recreational. The 23 states with legal medical marijuana and the 17 with restrictive CBD only programs make quite a bit themselves.
When you take all those numbers and roll them all together, you figure out about how much legal marijuana was bought in the United States. Over the recent years the number has climbed substantially – there was a 17% increase just between 2014 and 2015.
In 2015 the total legal marijuana sales in the US came to $5.4 billion – if that doesn’t sound like a growing and profitably industry then I don’t know what does. The individuals who wrote the reports and crunched the numbers are estimating a 30% increase annually over the next couple of years.
“I think that we are going to see in 2016 this next wave of investors, the next wave of business operators, and people who’ve sort of been watching or dipping their toe in, really starting to swing for the fences and take it really seriously,” ArcView CEO Troy Dayton said in an interview.
In the report, they divided the different types of marijuana programs in order to have the most accurate information available. The categories they divided it into are: adult use (recreational), medicinal (THC & CBD, full spectrum programs), and medicinal programs with restrictive access (CBD only programs, such as the one in Florida).
Recreational sales accounted for almost a billion dollars – officially the number is $998 million. The rest is medical marijuana and a large majority of that is full spectrum programs. That is a significant increase over the total $351 million that recreational sales made in 2014. It’s amazing what adding two states can do to boost that number.
These reports were created to analyze the investing potential for marijuana businesses – there are plenty of people who have been considering marijuana stocks; and these reports are also beneficial for entrepreneurs or investors who have been considering jumping into the industry but wanted to make sure it stayed on an upward swing.
With more states voting this November on legalization of marijuana, whether medical or recreational, the market is going to continue to grow across the country. They are projecting that the total sales of legal marijuana will reach $21.8 billion by the year 2020.
It’s looking like there isn’t a better time than now to start investing in the ever-growing marijuana industry.
